Tag Archives: GIMP

Edublogs webinar overviews – Pt 2 De Bono action shoes for 2E students, a Serendipity & shared tools

Posted on by
Reply

 

Introduction

Apologies once again for the delay in posting and the need to do a three in one post. Too many things happening in life and work at the moment and I can’t keep up! The first of the two sessions in this post ws the second half of a FineFocus session on De Bono’s action shoes and 2E students by @jofrei. The second was a Serendipity session – I am particularly grateful that this was recorded as I was unable to attend so the overview is based on the recording. The third session was an “off-the-cuff” session where several of us shared a tool/application we have used with students – Voicethread (@poulingail), GIMP (@philhart), Linoit (@JoHart) and Voki (@jofrei).

De Bono action shoes for a 2E student on Gagne’s DMGT road – Part 2

This recorded session was the second part of the double FineFocus session presented by @jofrei – Jo Freitag, creator of Sprite’s Site and co-ordinator of the Gifted Resources website

Jo began with a brief recap of the first session:

  • Edward de Bono’s Six Action Shoes which are the follow up to the Six Thinking Hats;
  • Gagne’s Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent;
  • the Six Action Shoes in the context of the Feetspeak Quest Map;
  • a reminder of the six shoes and their relationship to the Gagne DMGT model.

The main focus of this session was a consideration of combinations and variations in the shoes. We had a great time exploring the possible combinations of two shoe types to produce modified action plans. Jo also shared some extra shoe types of her own that broaden the program possibilities including Sprite’s plaster cast that symbolises the support that may be available through eligibility for funding!

A great session from Jo as always!

Serendipity

A lively recorded session that I was sorry to miss! I am writing the overview from the recording and although I am delighted to be able to catch the recording and to do this, I feel that the overview lacks the depth that comes from being there. This Serendipity ranged across several topics – Contacts for ESL; Which is better f-2-f or online; and why are outdated skills still being taught. An eclectic blend of topics which seemed to work very well! The conversation jumped around between topics often linking them together through context for example using online for ESL. The only way to do this session justice is to catch the recording!

Show and Tell about tools used with students

The third recorded session in this overview was a FineFocus in which several of us present gave a short “Show and Tell” about a particular tool that we use with students. This session was inspired by Gail (@poulingail) who had (the previous week) volunteered to tell us about her use of Voicethread.

Gail showed us the Voicethread site giving us the link for signing up. She also shared her own page and in particular a thread from her Kindy students about a visit to a nearby vernal pool, fantastic to hear such young students articulating their ideas about the pool. Gail continued – telling us about how she is using Voicethread to collaborate with other classes. One point she made of which I was only vaguely aware before is that you can give your feedback using other media than just plain recording on the site. This may encourage me to try again! A great “share” by Gail – I certainly learned a huge amount!

Next up was Phil (@philhart) who told us about the GIMP – his favourite image editor. Free and with similar features to those of Photoshop. This is the one that Phil always recommends to students who want something a bit more sophisticated than Photofiltre. Phil takes panoramic images – many images that are then “stitched” together. These inevitably need a degree of editing and to illustrate the advantages of GIMP Phil showed us how he can quickly and easily remove image flaws. Again a fascinating share!

Then it was my turn! My chosen tool was Linoit which is similar to Wallwisher. I have used this intermittently with students since myslf contributing to a fabulous global one instigated by Michael Graffin (@mgraffin) for World Water Day in 2011. I have used Linoit for students to give feedback on classess and also for short pieces of writing – often using an image as stimulus. Next year I will be asking students to write Haiku in response to an image stimulus. I enjoyed sharing Linit.

To finish off Jo Freitag (@jofrei) related her experiences with Voki (a talking avatar) and teenage boys in her blogging project completed last year. She emphasised how much the students enjoyed making Vokis and slso made the point that they didn’t, as could easily be the case with this age group feel that making Vokis was “babyish”. A terrific “word picture” from Jo to end the session.

This session was fun – it is always so interesting when different people share tools as we all gain so many insights from one another.

Our Next Session

Our next Webinar is an Edublogs “Serendipity” session where we invite you to suggest your “hot” topics for discussion – we then select the topic by poll.  Join us on Thursday November 15th at 23:00 GMT/UTC the time for you will vary depending on your timezone (check yours here) Thursday afternoon/evening in the USA, late night Thursday in Europe, and Friday morning November 16th in Australia – in the usual Blackboard Collaborate virtual room.

Edublogs webinar overview – Pay for software you have to be joking!

Posted on by

Introduction

This was a great recorded session even though we were a very small group. Phil who is @philhart on Twitter did a terrific job and I really enjoyed being a “participant” and leaving most of the hard work to him!

The Session
After the usual preliminaries Phil started the session by checking that we had all recieved the file he had sent to us by file transfer. This is a listing of some free software that can be downloaded or accessed within the cloud. NB if you access the recording this file will also be automatically sent to you.

Phil asked us what software we already use or would want to use. He then moved on to ensuring that we all had a similar understanding of the terms “Open Source”, “Closed Source” and “Free Software”. From my own perspective it seems that the term “Free Software” is one that could provide much food for discussion in its own right! It is often used, in my opinion inappropriately, by suppliers for restricted and time limited trial versions.

We than moved on to sharing our experiences with some different free software Afterwards Phil raised the issue of  the pros and cons of free software and what we can do to mitigate the possiblew impacts of the “cons”.

ProConResize

As Phil was looking at both downloadable and cloud-based applications we also took a look at the concept of cloud-based computing and some of its possible disadvantages! The rest of the session was a discussion on some of the available software including links for sites which have a variety of free software available.

Conclusion

I learned lots from this session both from Phil and from the other participants! If you’re considering the possiblity of using free software or if you are already looking for something specific then its well worth catching the recording.

Next Webinar

SerendipitybsmallOur next session is an Edublogs “Serendipity” session on Thursday Jan 20th at 23:00 GMT/UTC (6pm USA EST, Midnight BST) or Friday Jan 21th at 1am CEST, 7am West Aus, 10am NSW, depending on your timezone – in the usual Elluminate room. This is one of our fortnightly unconference sessions where we invite you to bring along your “hot topics” and “burning issues” for our poll on the topic of the day. If you want to propose a topic in advance then visit the Serendipity Wallwisher and add your topic.

In the Future

If you are a regular visitor to our webinars you will know that we alternate “Fine Focus” sessions on specific topics with “Serendipity” the unconference sessions where we choose a topic by poll at the start of the session. Sometimes the very fact of being asked for “hot topics” or other ideas for discussion or learning tends to make our minds blank. This has prompted me to start a Serendipity Wallwisher for topic suggestions. Please visit the wall and add your ideas for Serendipity topics so that we have more choices to consider. Some of these ideas might also form the basis for future “Fine Focus” sessions.

Webinar Overview – Using Layers in GIMP

Posted on by
1

Introduction

Our recent Edublogs webinar recording here was a “Techie How To” in which Phil Hart (@philhart) introduced, and gave us an opportunity to explore,  some of the tools that he uses for editing layers in the GIMP image editing application to produce a variety of effects.

The Session

As is often the case with “Techie How To” sessions (because they are aimed at particular interests) this was a small group. There are advantages with small groups for this type of session as they provide much greater opportunities for interaction and participation.

After a brief introduction Phil set the scene for the tools he was going to look at and started Application Sharing to show the example image with associated layers to be used in the session.

AppShareGIMP

Because the group was small Phil was able to provide plenty of opportunities for “playing” with the tools. He did this by giving control of his mouse to participants so that they could try out the effects for themselves on different layers in his image. There are (as I have said before) some limitations to this – the inevitable lag in response when the mouse is being controlled remotely being the main one. My personal feeling (based largely on the high level of positive comments from participants in previous sessions) is that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed the session because although I have used GIMP a little I have never really got to grips with layers in any image editor. Something that I took away from the session was a better awareness of how useful the facility to use layers could be for me. I know I will still use a simpler editor for the majority of my editing but I will certainly head for GIMP when I want to do something more complex.

Next Webinar

SerendipitybsmallOur next Webinar is an Edublogs Serendipity – unconference session so bring along your hot topics and burning issues (what makes you spit with anger or thump a tub with passion) and throw them into the melting pot for the poll to choose our topic in the first ten minutes.

Join us on Thursday July 22 nd at 23:00 GMT/UTC (7pm USA EST, Midnight BST) or Friday July 23rd at 1am CEST,7am West Aus, 9am NSW, depending on your timezone – in the usual Edublogs/Elluminate Community Partnership room

.

Imagine your Image – Thoughts about Online PD (24th April)

Posted on by
3

One of my “go buttons” likely to generate a “rant” is having to wait for ever for images to open/download in websites and e-mail. This is partly because I live and work in an area that has bandwidth issues as a result of its regional location. I also work with regional and remote students some of whom are on dial up connections – this has made me even more mindful of the issues facing people with slow connections or older (slower) computers. This combined with the fact that I love to play with images and encourage students to do so gave rise to an idea for one of the Edublogs/ Elluminate Community Partnership Free Online PD sessions. An overview of the session can be found at the Edublogs Live Events Archive where  you will also find other links that might be of interest and also the link to the recording of the session.

The session was about making your images fit for purpose and I presented it jointly with Phil Hart. We both use free downloadable image editors for a lot of our image manipulation. Main reasons for this include:

  • we can carry them around on a memory stick and install them on anything without licensing issues;
  • we can recommend them to students who can then use them without incurring cost;
  • we can install them on college computers for student use without any issues;

I mainly use PhotoFiltre this is because I find it easy to use, and have also found that students (even those who are not highly “computerate”) also find it quite easy.

This session was fun! I enjoyed making sure that the introductory part was interactive because the opportunity to make online sessions interactive is one of my favourite things about Elluminate. So I included polling, drag and drop and whiteboard activities in the intital discusssion about the need for editing images particularly with respect to size. Then we moved on to more interaction using Application Share to show some of the editing features of Photofiltre and giving participants an opportunity to take control of my desktop and try out some edits for themselves. After that it was Phil Hart’s turn to take centre stage and show some ot the features of GIMP – a rather more advanced (but still free) editing application that allows the use of layers – while I took a rest (ha! ha!) and fielded the text chat. We wound up with some feedback on the session and opportunites for any questions not already dealt with in the text chat.

The text chat is another of the features that makes Elluminate a great tool – especially if two people are co-presenting because the one not actively presenting can watch and respond to this backchannel. Watch this space if you are interested in Elluminate (or virtual classrooms in general) as I often post about some of the activities and Elluminate tools I use to keep  sessions interactive for my students.